NGC7009, the Saturn Nebula

About this image

About this image
This is a one-minute exposure taken
on the night of September 26th 1994 (UT of observation 27/09/94:04:46).
This photograph shows a region 90 arc seconds square, and
is displayed in pseudo-color, where the brightness is mapped
to a color so as to show
more of the fainter features (in white) while not saturating
the bright regions (in red).
Observing conditions were not very good during this phase of
commissioning, so that this image has a "seeing" measurement (average
FWHM of several stars) of about 0.9 arc seconds.
Orientation: N is up, with W to the left.

About this object
The Saturn Nebula, NGC 7009, is in the constellation Aquarius.
A shell of glowing gas surrounds a central hot star.
The nebula was formed when the central star ejected perhaps as much as
ten percent of its mass, over a period of some millions of years.
Initially slow mass loss creates a surrounding shell of material which
is later ionized by hotter, faster ejecta, which can result in quite
complex structures.
This planetary nebula is 3900 light-years from Earth, and about half an
arc minute (or half a light-year) across.
Location: 21 04.2 -11 22 (2000).